DPE-2026-0023

Aanwezigheid via een automatisch antwoord

Een systeem antwoordt uit zichzelf op een ongevraagd signaal, en dat antwoord verraadt of er iemand is.

Familie
Gegevens
Status
actief
Geldt voor
web, mobile-app, api, desktop, iot

Wat er gebeurt

Someone sends an ordinary, unrequested signal to an address belonging to a person: a message, a call setup, a lookup, a notification. The receiving system answers on its own, below the level at which the person is involved, and the answer or its absence is observable to the sender. Repeating it produces a timeline of when the device was on, awake, connected or nearby.

Waarom het ertoe doet

The person is not told, sees nothing and has no record. Encryption of the content does not help, because the fact and the timing of the answer are the signal. A pattern of such answers describes sleep, work, travel and who is in the same place at the same time, and the exposure survives every setting the person can reach.

Veelvoorkomende oorzaken

  • a delivery or read confirmation generated by the client before any human sees the message
  • a fetch of a link preview triggered by receipt rather than by opening
  • a status or availability field that any party may query
  • a silent notification that reaches the device and produces an observable acknowledgement

Dit is het níet

A status a person deliberately publishes is not this entry. Nor is the content of the message, which may be perfectly protected. The distinguishing feature is that the answer is automatic, unrequested, and invisible on the receiving side.

Hoe je het vaststelt

Indicator

A stimulus sent to your own second account or device produces an observable response, with no notification on the receiving side, whose presence or timing changes with the state of that device. Establishing it requires repeating the stimulus while varying only the device state.

Methode

differential

Kwaliteit van de detectie

85 van 100

De grenzen van deze bevinding

Wat dit patroon zou weerleggen

  • The response is also produced when the device is off, meaning it comes from a server rather than from the device.met de hand te toetsende bevinding krijgt een ander patroonThen it says something about the account, not about presence, which is a different and weaker finding.
  • The receiving side is notified of the stimulus.met de hand te toetsende bevinding wordt zwakkerThe person can then see it happening, which removes the invisibility that defines this entry.
  • A setting reachable by the person suppresses the response, and it holds.met de hand te toetsende bevinding vervalt
  • The response requires a prior relationship, such as an accepted contact, which the sender cannot obtain unilaterally.met de hand te toetsende bevinding wordt zwakker

Wat dit patroon níet vaststelt

  • harm; the catalogue standardises a finding so it can be referred to, it does not weigh it
  • severity; there is no score here, by design. Weighing belongs to whoever applies the entry to a concrete case
  • unlawfulness; that is for a supervisory authority or a court
  • intent; a fault is usually a build decision, not a plan
  • absence: not finding it in one capture is not evidence that it is not there

Reproduceren

  • manualMETHOD.mdno dedicated reproduction exists yet; follow the general method and the indicator above

Juridisch kader

Bepalingen

eu-gdpr-5-1-ceu-gdpr-13eu-gdpr-6-1-a

Veelgehoorde tegenwerpingen

No content is exposed, the encryption holds.

The finding is not about content. Whether someone is awake, at home or beside a particular person is personal data, and it travels outside the encrypted payload.

The user can switch off confirmations.

Test it. Where the setting suppresses the visible indicator but the underlying answer still leaves the device, the setting addresses the interface and not the disclosure.

This is theoretical.

It is measurable on your own devices, repeatedly, with a stated state per run. That is the opposite of theoretical, and the measurement needs nobody else's account.

Geldt wanneer

to-processing

Verwante patronen

← alle patronen